A Quote by Al Yankovic

So that's why one of my rules of parody writing is that it's gotta be funny regardless of whether you know the source material. It has to work on its own merit. — © Al Yankovic
So that's why one of my rules of parody writing is that it's gotta be funny regardless of whether you know the source material. It has to work on its own merit.
Only by spiritual practice can we break through our karma and the effects of the causes we have made. Only then can we escape from them. It matters not whether you have acquired any merit. Merit is merit. Karma is karma. Nonetheless, if one practices the Quan Yin Method, one can be liberated regardless of having any merit or not. It is so logical, so scientific.
The parody is the last refuge of the frustrated writer. Parodies are what you write when you are associate editor of the Harvard Lampoon. The greater the work of literature, the easier the parody. The step up from writing parodies is writing on the wall above the urinal.
Rules are what governs us as humans, but it was wonderful to meet a man who said "There are no rules. You gotta be what you gotta be and you gotta believe in it." I know that's a feeling I used to feel a lot at a younger age, and through the sense of responsibility and working with so many and taking on so many duties and actions, you lose if you don't stay on top of it. So that's what I love about this man, that there are no rules.
After my first novel, my mother said to me, 'Why don't you make your writing more funny? You're so funny in person.' Because my first novel was rather dark. And I don't know, but something about what she said was true. 'Yes, why don't I?' Maybe I was afraid to be funny in the writing. But since then, seven books later, almost everything I've done has a comedic edge to it.
For some reason, people find me funny. It's quite hard to define why a thought is funny. It's even harder to define why a person would be funny. It's a word that I can't define at all. But whether I know quite what it is or not, I seem to be it.
I tell myself that, regardless of what source I draw on, I'm writing a new work for reasons peculiar to me and not an adaptation, and so feel, in the end, justified in singing it my way.
Your source material is the people you know, not those you don't know, but every character is an extension of the author's own personality.
I would want people to be their own superheroes, save their own days, know that nobody else is gonna do it for you. You have to pick yourself up out of your dark moment; you gotta be your own source of light, just like I was for me.
When you come into a pre-existing situation, you gotta have your own thing going. You gotta be really strong about it, and you gotta look at the older material in an aggressive way - 'I'm gonna make this mine somehow.' You need to put your imprint on the situation that you're in.
Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself. If I think it's funny I assume a few other people will find it funny, and that seems to me to be a good day's work.
I believe my own demons would have caught up with me regardless of my race and regardless of whether I worked at 'The Times.
I believe my own demons would have caught up with me regardless of my race and regardless of whether I worked at 'The Times.'
I just want people to understand that regardless of what it is that you do - whether you're a teacher, whether you are a doctor, a single mother, a college student, a big sister - that you have strength within you, and I want people to be inspired to walk in their own superhero regardless of what it is that they do.
Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means - and in any context, whether it's judicial or otherwise - I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit to the system.
I didn't know if I could be funny on stage or write a joke. But I saw that there are no rules. If you're funny offstage, you can figure out a way to be funny onstage.
I've always thought that whether I'm writing or not, I've gotta pick the best songs, whether or not they're mine. I'm not gonna sing them just because I wrote them. I've gotta find the best songs to make the best record I can.
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